Stolen Time
by JacquiT
Summary: Nick draws upon a very fond memory to help him through a particularly difficult situation.


This was written for round 19 of the Nick Songfic Challenge at TalkCSI. The song was "100 Years" by John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting). Please note: I learned everything I know about medicine from Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy ;) Hope you enjoy!

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><p>Taking a moment to appreciate the pretty dining room a moment, Nick turned slowly in a circle, his camera in hand. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first glance, but he got paid to turn a first glance into a second or a third, or however many it would take, scrutinizing each detail. Over by the door he saw movement, and opened his mouth to greet who he thought was Catherine, his partner on this crime scene.<p>

He heard the popping noise of the Glock going off long before he felt any pain. He looked down and saw the blood seeping through his jeans and the hole in his black crime scene vest. _Shit_, he thought, which mildly surprised him. When he looked up, a menacing face greeted him and he reached out, but only managed to graze the man's arm with his fingernails. Dizziness came over him rather suddenly, and he fell backward. As the man walked by he knocked Nick hard in the jaw with the tip of his boot. He managed to call out one time, but the effort made his head swim.

Nick struggled to sit up, knowing he needed to do something more constructive. Breathing heavily, feeling a thickness in his throat, he pulled a glove out of his left front pocket and put it over his right hand. After resting a moment, he pulled the Sharpie from his back pocket and wrote on the palm of his gloved hand.

HE KICKED MY JAW – RIGHT SHOE. BLACK LACE-UP BOOTS.

Then he turned his hand over and wrote on the back.

DO NOT REMOVE. DNA EVIDENCE. SUSPECT'S LEFT ARM.

On his jeans, which were becoming more and more red with his blood, he wrote again.

WHITE – BALD – BLUE EYES – REPTILE TATTOOS, BOTH ARMS

His head was getting lighter; his arms heavier. He rested them on the floor and put his head back. The Sharpie fell out of his hand as he struggled to remember . . . did he have piercings? Was his skin pink or olive? Were his eyes really blue, or were they green? He tried to keep his own eyes open, but they drooped closed . . . _Don't think about the pain . . . think about something else . . . Endorphins are a natural pain reliever . . . think of something that makes you happy . . . ._

"Mary Jo . . ." he said out loud, smiling as he struggled for air. A picture of her came to mind, and suddenly his chest didn't feel so tight. She was smiling, wearing a bright red sundress, holding his hand as her golden hair shone in the sun, swirling in the wind around her head. He was fifteen again, without a care except what he and Mary Jo and their group of friends were going to do on Friday night. Nicky, she called him, and he remembered lighting firecrackers and kissing her for the first time, and he wondered if he was going to heaven or to hell. Nicky, she said again, her lilting voice teasing him, her eyes full of promise and as he heard the sirens he wanted to scream – don't bother, it's too late, there's too much blood, and I'm happy here, because Mary Jo's right here with me, like she said she'd be, like she promised. Nicky, she said, I'm here and I'm real and I can save you if you just stop fighting me, Nicky. He tasted iron and smelled iodine and alcohol and someone was pricking his arm and he called her name and she replied – Nicky, don't fight me, you can stay here, I can save you, but as the solid wall of unconsciousness hit him in the chest he heard himself say what he should have said long before he left Texas . . . I love you, Mary Jo.

Grissom arrived in the ER at almost the same time Nick did. He was not allowed into the room where they were working on him, but he watched through Plexiglas as they crowded around and put a tube down his throat and he heard words like punctured and leaking and surgery. Then he saw Nick's right arm fall off the table and the glove on his hand. There was something on the glove – something black. Print powder maybe . . . or marker? It was marker . . . there were words. He could make out individual letters, sloppily written. A D . . . an N . . . . A nurse moved his arm then, and they were backing away.

"DNA," he said to himself. _He's got evidence in that glove._

"Page Seth Montgomery," hollered a formidable-looking woman to a nurse as she left the trauma room, her yellow smock doused in Nick's blood. He approached her.

"Excuse me . . . I'm Gil Grissom, from the crime lab . . . I'm Nick's supervisor."

"You didn't do a very good job of supervising," she spat. "His vitals are stabilizing but he needs surgery. Where is his family?"

"They're in Texas," he replied, ignoring her ill-informed barb. "We're contacting them and I'm sure they'll be headed to Vegas, but right now, I need to see Nick. He may have evidence-"

She interrupted angrily. "You damn cops – you're so concerned about evidence, you don't care if someone dies as long as you get it. Do you not understand that he's probably going to die in pursuit of evidence?"

"I'm not a cop," he replied coolly, "and all I need is a moment, to recover evidence that may lead us to the person who did this to him."

"Oh – so it's OK if he dies, as long as we put the guy in jail."

"I don't want Nick to die any more than you do. It's not my intent to disregard the medical attention he needs and I don't want to get in the way, but I need the evidence from his hand before someone compromises it. I need to get in that room – it'll only take a moment."

"In this building, moments are the difference between life and death. You're not getting in there on my watch," she snapped, and turned away, barking orders at assorted nurses on her way down the hall.

As Grissom turned around to head into the trauma room anyway, he saw the gurney that Nick was on being rushed down the hall. He followed.

One of the nurses turned to him. "Sir, he's not conscious. We need to get him to surgery; you can talk to him later."

"He's got DNA evidence in the glove on his right hand," yelled Grissom over the noise of the rolling wheels and shouting doctors. "And I need his clothes."

"I'll talk to the surgeon, but you have to stay here."

"Don't move that glove!" he hollered back as a nurse held him back. The double doors that lead to the surgical suites swung closed behind Nick and the medical team, and Grissom was left to wonder on his fate. He wondered how he would call Nick's father – again – and explain that he and his wife needed to come to Vegas – again – because his son was in mortal peril – again. He wondered how he would explain this to the rest of his team, and worse – to Ecklie.

He pulled out his phone and started to dial – Ecklie first, just to get the worst over with_. Stay alive, Nicky,_ he thought as he put the phone to his ear. _I'll find him . . . just stay alive._

After a few moments – which had been enough time to have an exceptionally unpleasant conversation with Ecklie – a nurse came to take him to Nick. "Jenell will help you scrub," said the surgeon, Seth Montgomery, as he gestured to Jenell, who was putting gloves on his hands. "Just take care of your business as fast as you can."

Without another word, the surgeon turned to enter the suite. Jenell gestured impatiently to the sink.

As soon Jenell deemed him ready, Grissom entered the surgical suite and approached the table where Nick was prepped for surgery. The sight was a little surreal – Nick's arms were spread out, uncovered, with rivulets of dried blood on his forearms. He quietly set his kit down.

Grissom aimed his camera at the back of Nick's hand and snapped photos, then turned his hand over and snapped a few more and looked up. He couldn't see most of Nick's face for the nurse who stood in the way, but he could see the purple bruise forming where the glove told him Nick had been kicked. Setting down his camera, he opened his kit and removed the supplies he needed.

He removed the glove carefully and put it in an evidence bag. He could photograph it later.

"Core temp is down to 96," he heard, as he put the evidence bag in his kit and picked up his camera to snap pictures of Nick's bare hand.

"Jesus, I haven't even started," snapped the surgeon, his voice harsh.

Grissom swallowed and aimed. _Snap, snap._ He moved to turn Nick's hand over.

"95.7 and falling, Dr. Montgomery."

"Heart rate is slowing . . . 50 BPM."

"Pressure?"

"Low but stable."

Grissom shut the rest out; he understood too much. _Hang on, Nicky._ He aimed the camera again_. Snap, snap._ Putting down the camera, he prepared to scrape Nick's nails. As he gathered the cold hand of his friend and poised the orange stick, however, he could not ignore the surgical team's controlled panic as they realized things were not going their way.

"Pressure's dropping . . ."

"Core temp 95.3 . . ."

"He's crashing . . ."

"Get the paddles!"

Grissom's heart jumped into his throat and it seemed to him that the surgical team began to move in slow motion. _Not now, Nicky,_ he thought. _Not now. It's not your day._

But the next moment he looked up at Dr. Seth Montgomery in horror as the heart monitor began its high-pitched unceasing beep, the one that meant that the borrowed time Nick had been living on since he was shot was coming to an end.

Borrowed time . . . _We're on more than borrowed time, Gil._ Sara's voice pierced his thoughts. _We're on stolen time, and if we're going to move forward, we're going to have to steal some more._

_How? _he had asked. _How can we do that?_

He remembered her smile. _A word . . . a look . . ._

_Jane Austen._

_A touch will be enough to decide._

'_Touch' wasn't part of the letter._

'_Touch' is from a different source, Gil._

_Who?_

Her smile again. _Me. _

He had reached out to touch her then, her upper arm, and as he stood in the operating room where Nick lay dying, knowing he would be censured, knowing he was compromising evidence, he snapped his glove off and put his warm hand on Nick's bare, cold forearm.

_Steal some more time, Nicky._ His eyes filled with tears – from where, he didn't know. He literally couldn't remember the last time he had cried. _Hold on. Today's not your day._

Just as Montgomery moved to place the paddles on Nick's chest, Grissom felt the muscles under his hand flinch, and the constant beep stopped, to be replaced by a slow but methodical one.

"Pressure is rising."

"We need more blood."

"Warm him up. I can't operate on a popsicle."

Grissom said nothing as his heart slowed, and he squeezed Nick's arm. "You can hold on a little while longer, Nicky," he murmured behind his mask. "It's not your day." He replaced his glove and finished his task quickly, and then left the surgical suite.

"Nick."

His body felt terribly heavy, which was a sure sign that he had not gone to heaven.

"Nick."

Even his eyelids were heavy. He tried to lift them, to see where he was – what hell looked like. He heard muttering, and then the voice that had called his name got closer.

"Nick. Nick, you're late for work."

Ah . . . so he wasn't in hell, after all. Not technically, anyway. A hand landed on his shoulder and shook him gently, and slowly, he opened his eyes.

"Griss . . . I'm going to need a day or two off."

"I think I can swing that, Nicky."

"Who processed me?"

"I did. I got the glove, uncompromised as far as I could tell, and I got your jeans." A grin spread across Grissom's bearded face. "Nice work, Nicky."

Nick blinked again, the corners of his tired eyes crinkling. "Thanks, Griss." Pausing a moment, he slowly moistened his parched lips. "I want my jeans back."

"Your jeans?"

He smiled a little. "Yeah."

Grissom raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. "You, of all people, want a trophy?"

"No . . . not a trophy," said Nick quietly, shaking his head. "A reminder."

"Nicky, you didn't do anything wrong," replied the older man soothingly.

"I know," he replied, "but not everyone gets the chance to write on their jeans, do they?"

Grissom shook his head. "No . . . but that's where we step in." It then dawned on Grissom that Nick might need some encouragement to go back to work once he was well enough. He would need a reminder of why he did what he did every day – why they sifted through people's lives, why they asked intrusive questions, why they couldn't care if they exposed dark family secrets . . . because truth demanded it, because justice was a right, because the violated and the dead couldn't speak up for themselves without people like them. "I'll see what I can do," he said, patting Nick's shoulder. "Hang in there, Nicky."

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><p>(c) 2011 J. H. Thompson<p> 


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